Dragon Age series continues in “late 2013″ with Inquisition

New title to be built on top of the Battlefield 3 engine.

Publisher EA and developer BioWare have confirmed the long-expected third chapter in the popular Dragon Age RPG franchise will be titled Inquisition and released in "late 2013."

Executive Producer Mark Darrah writes on the official Dragon Age website that the Inquisition development team in Montreal and Edmonton is made up of "a lot of the same team that has been working on Dragon Age since Dragon Age: Origins." That team has been working on the game "in some way for about two years now with the bulk of our efforts ramping up about 18 months ago," Darrah continued.

Neither company offered details on what kind of gameplay or story changes players can expect for the next entry in the series, but they did announce that Inquisition will be powered by a new technology based on Frostbite 2, the same core graphics and gameplay engine used in Battlefield 3. The first two games in the series used an engine built from the ground up specifically for Dragon Age.

Interestingly, EA's announcement didn't specify which platforms Inquisition would be launching on (and EA representatives said they had nothing more to announce on the matter at this time). Current consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are definitely capable of running Frostbite 2-powered games, but new consoles from Sony and Microsoft that are expected to launch in late 2013 could give a bit more graphical oomph to the game.

Hmmm. My only exposure to Obsidian is Neverwinter Nights 2. I hated that game. There were so many things wrong with the UI that it made enjoying the game impossible. So, given that experience, I guess at best is I will watch the Eternity project with skepticism. For reference, I loved NWN1 and still play it today.

BoT: I actually never finished DA and never purchased DA:O. I tried to get into it, even played it for about 30 hours but something just didn't click with me. It was way too boring. Call me a turncoat or whatever, but I loved the interplay of the characters in your party in DA:2, although Isabella did piss me off quite often. The combat was awesome in terms of fluidity. The blood spatter effects were completely juvenile IMO, but I can overlook that.

If they can combine the better aspects of 1 & 2, and it sounds like they are if the game has already been in development for 2 years, I'll definitely play the third installment baring any draconian DRM (EA is supposedly only doing an online serial check at install now). Only after the first adopters get it and review it of course.

The guys working on Project Eternity made Fallout 1 and 2, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Arcanum, Planescape: Torment, etc. and are aiming for game more in that vein.

Not sure I understand all the hate against DA2 taking place in one town. Might as well hate GTA for not doing a cross country trip while you're at it. Problem with DA2 was the plot was completely on rails. The only differences were small flavor things that you'd expect from an MMO. Congratulations xxAwesomeMcHugexx, you saved our town from the vast army of 15 orcs! Your actions in Fable 2 felt like they had more impact on the story which is weird considering how the game boiled down to a chose the door to get a prize ending.

I think the issue is more from the limited backgrounds/scenery. I think they could have done one large city, but varied it more. I did get tired of running down the same hallways/streets over and over again. While I know it's not a sandbox game, they could have done more to give it that feel - instead of another random encounter in the same street. Even many of the story quests recycled the same small section. It's the only city where EVERY alleyway is identical.

I must admit that I did still like the game. I just would have enjoyed it more if they'd put in more effort.

Not sure I understand all the hate against DA2 taking place in one town. Might as well hate GTA for not doing a cross country trip while you're at it. Problem with DA2 was the plot was completely on rails. The only differences were small flavor things that you'd expect from an MMO. Congratulations xxAwesomeMcHugexx, you saved our town from the vast army of 15 orcs! Your actions in Fable 2 felt like they had more impact on the story which is weird considering how the game boiled down to a chose the door to get a prize ending.

I think the issue is more from the limited backgrounds/scenery. I think they could have done one large city, but varied it more. I did get tired of running down the same hallways/streets over and over again. While I know it's not a sandbox game, they could have done more to give it that feel - instead of another random encounter in the same street. Even many of the story quests recycled the same small section. It's the only city where EVERY alleyway is identical.

I must admit that I did still like the game. I just would have enjoyed it more if they'd put in more effort.

This is my thoughts too. The reuse of scenery did get old and, IMO, was the biggest flaw in the game. I prefer DA:O to DA2 for this very reason, but I also think that if they had fixed this issue, then I probably would have preferred DA2.

I actually liked the story in DA2, even better than in DA:O. It felt more nuanced to me, not just another "save the world" type story. I also never understood the whole "my choices didn't impact the final moments" argument, specifically why that is a problem. I don't disagree with the premise, I just don't see why it matters. The choice is important in and of itself, regardless of whether or not the game pats you on the back for it.

Didn't really like DA1. Finished it but meh, story was nice and epic but combat was a let down (at best). As this was supposed to be a spiritual successor to BG2, I was... disappointed. Skipped DA2 after learning it was in a single town - that doesn't even compare well with BG1. But I'll wait and see how it works out (Bioware under EA is no longer an automatic buy - now I read the reviews very carefully). For example, ME3 is going to be one of the $20 for Game of the Year version purchases (to darn much concern about making out with your party instead of worrying about taking on the world, if you ask me).

It does make sense to aim for the next gen consoles, however, as the xbox 360 is starting to get a bit underpowered. Perhaps with a bit more memory we won't have to deal with so many load screens - have to say that it gets a bit old to have a load screen every time I open a door or enter a town or something. That is one practice from BG that cannot die soon enough as far as I am concerned.

So they're going to make the sequel to a party-based RPG starting with an engine from an FPS? I suppose it can be tortured into some semblance of similarity to the original Dragon Age, but I rather doubt it.

EA has a competing service (Origin) and will not be putting any more titles on Steam.

DA2 was very different from DA:O. The first was about saving the world, had 6 varied origins, tons of locations, tons of characters, etc.

The second changed art styles, changed up combat, and simplified greatly. You couldn't even equip armor on your companions. It also focused on a single town and a small cast of characters. I don't fault them for trying a smaller, more personal story after a "chosen one saves the world" story, but it failed to deliver as a meaningful personal story as well. And I'm bothered more by the ending of DA2 than ME3 (talk about removing choice and forcing you into something you don't want).

If you can get it on the cheap and you enjoy RPGs, there are enjoyable aspects. But it certainly wasn't Bioware's finest hour.

What I don't get is that Bioware supposedly spent 7 years on the initial DA, bragging it up all the time as a PC-minded spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and delivered with both titles a relatively simplistic action RPG that looks like it was designed for consoles first and foremost. And while the team largely stayed the same from the first game to the second, it changed drastically in a game that had a rushed development life to come out a year later.

Now they have a new engine. Visuals weren't the problem in either of the first two games.

And you have the Bioware founders talking about taking inspiration from Skyrim. Skyrim is an open-world sandbox that is nothing like DA. So what does that mean for DA3?

Eh I dunno. Never tried DA2 but the first game was quite "meh" to me. The good things were that there were a lot of dialouge and what you did had some impact but while the dialouge itself, characters and story had some good bits (I liked how the elves were done) it was generally sub par. What I really want is Obsidian making this game.

(yeah I know they're busy with that Kickstarter thing but a man can dream )

The original DA was near pitch-perfect, apart from the BROWNNESS of it all. The second one had a much improved artstyle, but with the combat becoming too CLICKTILLDEATH and the story suffering from too much of the same places (reused maps didn't help). I actually felt the second game, in compressed form, could have been presented as an expansion a la Awakening, with nobody minding (it is a fairly decent story).

But now my hopes are sort of down because I have no faith in EA any more. The only game I'm going to buy from them is FIFA 13, because WE INDIA NOW.

It would appear I'm in good company here, but Bioware is dead to me. I think it started when they sold to EA. No matter how much they protest that they're given independence and all of that, it seems that EA has managed to suck the soul out of yet another once wonderful company. I bought and mostly enjoyed everything from Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins, too.

Mass Effect was okay, but I suffered through the 1/3 of the game that was FPS (i genre I don't dig) to get at the part that Bioware originally made their name on, and the part that I loved them for: the 2/3 RPG. It appeared that with ME2 they went 2/3 FPS and 1/3 RPG, at best, so I waved goodbye.

DA:O was fun at first, but as it wore on and on and on, it revealed itself to be a highly generic fantasy game with no art direction to speak of and a bland brown-gray palette. The plot was lame, the itemization sucked, the balance was out of whack, and the game was massively, incredibly, horribly bug-ridden. Oh, and then there's all of that Day 0 DLC, and the "I have a quest for you! You'll finally get a stash as a reward! Just insert 40 quarters to unlock it." As such, I passed on DA2, and judging by the reviews and word of mouth, it's a good thing I did. I look forward to DA3 in the same fashion that I look forward to an oncoming collision of trains.

Farewell, Bioware. I can understand why you cashed out, but I am still sad you did it.

*I* however will NOT be continuing with the Dragon Age series after the twin fiascos of Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3. Bioware games were normally day one purchase for me, but no more. It seems once you are bought by EA it's just a slow march to death for your game development studio. Oh well.

Wonder how EA will manage to force multiplayer into this one though. (Especially since we know based on the statement from few days ago that they are no longer interested in developing single player only games.)

What a fresh and original perspective that I have never heard before!

Did I say something there that was untrue? There was a statement from some EA manager (forget who exactly) about a week ago where he said that he has not and will not greenlight any game that is single player only. Forget Mass Effect 3, look at Dead Space 3 instead. Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 are judged to be relative failures by many, certainly on artistic level if not economically--but you can only do this so long before people stop buying.

So what exactly do you disagree with?

The troll. You are feeding it. That is like stepping on grass that has a sign that says, "don't step on grass."

When did it become trolling to push people to expand on their ideas? To challenge their statements?

This isn't "trolling." At worst, it's Socratic gadflyism. People need to learn that having their opinions challenged isn't being trolled.

Frankly, a lot of the complaints that I've read about ME3/DA2 are clearly not having to do with BW being owned by EA. It has to do with BW's own flaws as a company. People want to believe that BW is somehow a "victim" of the even EA corporate hate machine, and that their imaginary perfect BW (remember how good Baldur was? OMG BALDUR. BALDUR. BALDUR!) would never have failed in the ways that they did with DA2.

Never mind that DA2 was nowhere near as bad as people made it out to be. Was it not great? Sure. But it wasn't horrific. It wasn't Cheetahmen.

1) Make the combat challenging, like DA:O, make me pause, make me work.2) Keep the graphic style more like the first one.3) More Morrigan.

Quiet Desperation wrote:

mvmiller12 wrote:

I am looking forward to it, actually. I must admit that I was disappointed with the ENDING of ME3,

Also thought the ME3 ending was a trainwreck, but I also felt the rest of the game was flawed. The tracking of quests out of the citadel was a mess. Many of the levels were really poorly designed. Just a general lack of polish over the whole experience.

Got ME3 at Gamestop for $20, so it'll have to stink pretty hard for me to be disappointed.

Though, was a pain finally installing and getting it to run, I have Hughes.net satellite - if my internet is clunky, ME3 won't always run. Getting the new ending stuff via Origin was a challenge, too.

So, I finally am ready to play, I turn on my wireless MS XBOX 360 gamepad (which seems to be supported by just about every game these days), lean back in my chair, boot up the game, and I'm pressing buttons, and hey... they're not working... no gamepad support. Then I was truly disappointed.

When did it become trolling to push people to expand on their ideas? To challenge their statements?

This isn't "trolling." At worst, it's Socratic gadflyism. People need to learn that having their opinions challenged isn't being trolled.

Uh, did you read the same comment I did?

Quote:

What a fresh and original perspective that I have never heard before!

That was the post, start to finish. That's not "challenging someone's statements". No substantive points were made. There's nothing to rebut. It's just one line of pointless sarcasm. It's not even a valid critique. It's a troll.

Quote:

Frankly, a lot of the complaints that I've read about ME3/DA2 are clearly not having to do with BW being owned by EA. It has to do with BW's own flaws as a company. People want to believe that BW is somehow a "victim" of the even EA corporate hate machine, and that their imaginary perfect BW (remember how good Baldur was? OMG BALDUR. BALDUR. BALDUR!) would never have failed in the ways that they did with DA2.

What you're saying doesn't even make sense. Baldur? Are you talking about Baldur's Gate? Baldur's Gate 2? Why did you feel the need to repeat it three times in caps? Baldur's Gate was a great game. Perfect? Maybe not, but I don't think anyone ever claimed that, as much as you might like to portray it otherwise. Also, the fact of the matter is that in most people's eyes, Bioware never did fail in the pre-EA days in the way that it failed in the post-EA days.

Blaming BW's downfall on EA is conjecture, but so is saying that they would have failed without the EA buyout. Fact of that matter is that BW put out good, solid games for years, and then they sold to EA, and then quality dipped noticeably and they put a lot of odious practices into play. No, we'll never know for sure, but EA has a history of doing this, and the timing lines up quite nicely.

Can’t say which one of you is talking about the pc DA or the console DA. Unfortunately, played both on ps3, and my friend said that the game is veeeery different on the pc (battle system). Maybe trying the next one on PC will make the experience better.

I get that not everyone liked Dragon Age. But why so much vitriol? Clearly there's an audience that enjoys it and BioWare has found a path to continue letting them enjoy it. After DA2 I doubt that I'll personally continue the series, but I know at least one person who will likely do so. No, he's not an idiot. He just really enjoys Dragon Age and BioWare-style games. That's his prerogative.

It just seems to me that a lot of folks are now harboring some weird grudge against BioWare because they were unhappy with the past two releases. I get DA2 (it was unpolished at best,) but the amount of sheer hatred for ME3 is just... odd. Never mind the amount of hoping to see BioWare now fail in some fashion that I see. Why?

I just don't get why everyone is so, well... angry that BioWare is making another game in a franchise. If people enjoy it, why shouldn't that be enough?

"From now on, don't expect to see EA coming out with single-player offline titles, because there won't be any. EA Labels President Frank Gibeau said that the company is full-on embracing cloud gaming and online interaction: "I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365.""

So I expect DA3 to have some sort of always-online feature tagged on, something like Diablo 3, because hey, Blizzard got away with it so EA will definitely want to. I would expect a similar sort of drop-in, drop-out co-op system, friends lists etc. It will not be a true Dragon Age successor. Of course they'll market it as the best thing to happen to the franchise, but I for one will not be buying it.

A game like Dragon Age:Origins or Mass Effect 1 were calls back to the golden age of gaming. After being teased with that we get suckerpunched on sequels. I and many other people tend to emotionally invest in the storylines of these interactive stories we are given, and thus, when they really jump the shark, it hurts. It hurts more than it does when the story isn't interactive; See how Serenity made some people unhappy with certain characters dying and how; the furor there died rather quickly. In ME3, the furor is still there, primarily because those of us who are angry are the group of people that see every option given as a false choice the character we play would never choose. But hey, it's just a game, right? I suppose. But it is just a game I happened to emotionally invest in. And thus, as I am unhappy with the turns of events we've been given, I refuse their full price games and I badmouth them at every opportunity, thus voting with my words and my wallet.

When did it become trolling to push people to expand on their ideas? To challenge their statements?

This isn't "trolling." At worst, it's Socratic gadflyism. People need to learn that having their opinions challenged isn't being trolled.

Uh, did you read the same comment I did?

Yup. I still don't think it's trolling. I remember trolling back in the day. Trolling was art. This, sir, is no trolling.

Quote:

Quote:

What a fresh and original perspective that I have never heard before!

That was the post, start to finish. That's not "challenging someone's statements". No substantive points were made. There's nothing to rebut. It's just one line of pointless sarcasm. It's not even a valid critique. It's a troll.

Nah. Sarcasm in and of itself isn't trolling. Trolling is an attempt to incite. It's sedition of a sort. This was just being a gadfly. There's a difference.

Quote:

Frankly, a lot of the complaints that I've read about ME3/DA2 are clearly not having to do with BW being owned by EA. It has to do with BW's own flaws as a company. People want to believe that BW is somehow a "victim" of the even EA corporate hate machine, and that their imaginary perfect BW (remember how good Baldur was? OMG BALDUR. BALDUR. BALDUR!) would never have failed in the ways that they did with DA2.

What you're saying doesn't even make sense. Baldur? Are you talking about Baldur's Gate? Baldur's Gate 2? Why did you feel the need to repeat it three times in caps? Baldur's Gate was a great game. Perfect? Maybe not, but I don't think anyone ever claimed that, as much as you might like to portray it otherwise. Also, the fact of the matter is that in most people's eyes, Bioware never did fail in the pre-EA days in the way that it failed in the post-EA days.

Blaming BW's downfall on EA is conjecture, but so is saying that they would have failed without the EA buyout. Fact of that matter is that BW put out good, solid games for years, and then they sold to EA, and then quality dipped noticeably and they put a lot of odious practices into play. No, we'll never know for sure, but EA has a history of doing this, and the timing lines up quite nicely.

Here's one that will probably piss off some folks: I don't think BW's failures have to do with EA. I think they have to do with BW wanting to do too much and not having the requisite vision or ideas.

I listed Baldur because it's so often used as the golden child of the BW "golden era" that never existed. It's used as the counterexample for why BW was great then but fails now. The problem-- and I only realized this on a recent attempt at a playthrough-- is that BW's same failures present themselves in BG1 and 2 the same way they present themselves in current releases. False choices, schmaltzy dialogue, over-reliance on lore rather than storytelling. But because many of us played Baldur when we were younger, we don't see that. The same way that people say that Final Fantasy started sucking after 7. Could it be that you grew up and Square didn't?

I think a lot of it has to do with nostalgia. I went and replayed KoTOR, for example, and just couldn't. It wasn't nearly as fun as ME, never mind that it lacked even the smidgen of originality that ME actually had.

If anything, the failures that we see out of BW now are because they're finally hitting the wall that they would have hit without help from EA. It's a creative wall, not some corporate wall. But people don't want to believe that their heroes fail on their own. They want to believe in a villain. It's kind of like in that episode of South Park where it turns out that the heart of Wal*Mart is the shopper. Well, there is no villain here other than BW and its customers. But if those customers are happy, and BW is happy, let them be.

The first Dragon Age was a great game mixing new elements and giving weight to choices. The second one shouldn't have been named DA since it flushed all the interesting RPG elements down the drain and dumbed down the combat to point and click mode. This makes me think the third one is a wait to be disappointed yet again announcement.

Didn't EA state that they were done with offline-style games? Would that turn DA3 into some 'always on' game?

You misunderstood the quote. They did say that all future games will have some sort of online component, but not that all games would be online only or have MP. Keep in mind that they audience at the time was investors. They don't know the difference between SP and MP. What they were talking about when they said "online component" is simply any online interaction past the point of sale. Things like the ability to download DLC or to interface with the "social gaming" crap on EA Origin.

Ah, fair enough. Was afraid they were going down the Ubisoft path.... or turning everything into MMO-lite.

A game like Dragon Age:Origins or Mass Effect 1 were calls back to the golden age of gaming. After being teased with that we get suckerpunched on sequels. I and many other people tend to emotionally invest in the storylines of these interactive stories we are given, and thus, when they really jump the shark, it hurts. It hurts more than it does when the story isn't interactive; See how Serenity made some people unhappy with certain characters dying and how; the furor there died rather quickly. In ME3, the furor is still there, primarily because those of us who are angry are the group of people that see every option given as a false choice the character we play would never choose. But hey, it's just a game, right? I suppose. But it is just a game I happened to emotionally invest in. And thus, as I am unhappy with the turns of events we've been given, I refuse their full price games and I badmouth them at every opportunity, thus voting with my words and my wallet.

Here is where I think that gaming culture goes terribly awry (and takes nerd culture in general as its bedmate): stop caring so much.

I know it's not like you have a switch you can just turn on or off in your brain, but it's so much better to just not care that much. You know what I did when I saw the original ending to Mass Effect 3? I shrugged, said "well, that was rather unexciting!" to my wife and went to the gym. That was it.

I've been told that I don't get it. I don't get invested enough. You know why? Because I don't see any reason to get invested. I'd rather invest myself in my family, in my friends, in my other hobbies. I don't want to spend so much time caring about whether or not mass relays blow up a certain way. Who cares? It's like getting upset about midichlorians and writing a fanfiction to "fix" it. My little nephews LOVE the new Star Wars. I don't. But the fact that they love it means that I shrug my shoulders and say, "Hey, they enjoy it, so that's enough for me."

It's one thing to vote with your dollars. That's good. But getting so invested in what is literally an interactive toy that you feel the need to badmouth the company is just way too much. Let it go. It reminds me of fans of a band who don't like a band once they "sell out." Don't be a bitter hipster. Nobody likes a bitter hipster.

I think the issue is more from the limited backgrounds/scenery. I think they could have done one large city, but varied it more. I did get tired of running down the same hallways/streets over and over again. While I know it's not a sandbox game, they could have done more to give it that feel - instead of another random encounter in the same street. Even many of the story quests recycled the same small section. It's the only city where EVERY alleyway is identical.

I must admit that I did still like the game. I just would have enjoyed it more if they'd put in more effort.

This is my thoughts too. The reuse of scenery did get old and, IMO, was the biggest flaw in the game. I prefer DA:O to DA2 for this very reason, but I also think that if they had fixed this issue, then I probably would have preferred DA2.

I actually liked the story in DA2, even better than in DA:O. It felt more nuanced to me, not just another "save the world" type story. I also never understood the whole "my choices didn't impact the final moments" argument, specifically why that is a problem. I don't disagree with the premise, I just don't see why it matters. The choice is important in and of itself, regardless of whether or not the game pats you on the back for it.

I agree that the story for DA2 seemed a bit more nuanced (probably because they limited the character creation a bit so didn't have such a variable player character). My problem with the story isn't so much the final choice because it was sort of nice that the last act's plot was pretty much driven by something that was out of your control even though you pretty much get all the blame (which is great because it shows just how screwed up everything is). I have issues with the huge time leaps not really showing much connection. A rather extreme example is how in Fable 2 the world can become a complete dump or rather nice depending on your actions in the first act. That didn't happen much outside of your party.

Now I'm not expecting the world to revolve around you (because frankly it shouldn't) but it would be nice if they not only told us that we moved up in the world and that people cared about what we did in the previous acts but showed it in the game. You're important, sure, but the game almost completely lived in the moment. They completely wasted opportunity that huge time leaps presented. The game felt more rushed with the lack of timeline coherence than the reuse of art assets (Mass Effect 1 was even more guilty of art reuse but doesn't get nearly the flack).

DA:O was great. Loved it for what it was. Was it a bit clunky in some respects? Yes. But overall it was a triple A title that deserved its recognition. DA:2 was a let down after the great experience of DA:O. A single city, fairly flat characters that I grew less interested in over time, and a story that just seemed a little too egocentric to the main character. Did I still enjoy it? Certainly, although I was not quite as happy with the game as I was with DA:O.

Will I buy DA:3? I'm on the fence about it. I guess it really depends on what information is released over the course of the next year. Really disappointed in the multiplayer/online component as I think for many games it is only implemented to limit the game itself. I really don't see much use for mp in DA as the story itself and the base game mechanics aren't really suited for that type of play. And is something I am not particularly interested in for a basic RPG type game.

Give me the combat mechanics of the first DA, blended with an improved interaction mechanic with the player's group of NPCs, a solid story line, and great visuals (extremely lacking in DA2 imo) and I'll at least give it a looksee. Other than that, if multiplayer is a primary component of the game, I'll probably pass.

I think the issue is more from the limited backgrounds/scenery. I think they could have done one large city, but varied it more. I did get tired of running down the same hallways/streets over and over again. While I know it's not a sandbox game, they could have done more to give it that feel - instead of another random encounter in the same street. Even many of the story quests recycled the same small section. It's the only city where EVERY alleyway is identical.

I must admit that I did still like the game. I just would have enjoyed it more if they'd put in more effort.

This is my thoughts too. The reuse of scenery did get old and, IMO, was the biggest flaw in the game. I prefer DA:O to DA2 for this very reason, but I also think that if they had fixed this issue, then I probably would have preferred DA2.

I actually liked the story in DA2, even better than in DA:O. It felt more nuanced to me, not just another "save the world" type story. I also never understood the whole "my choices didn't impact the final moments" argument, specifically why that is a problem. I don't disagree with the premise, I just don't see why it matters. The choice is important in and of itself, regardless of whether or not the game pats you on the back for it.

I agree that the story for DA2 seemed a bit more nuanced (probably because they limited the character creation a bit so didn't have such a variable player character). My problem with the story isn't so much the final choice because it was sort of nice that the last act's plot was pretty much driven by something that was out of your control even though you pretty much get all the blame (which is great because it shows just how screwed up everything is). I have issues with the huge time leaps not really showing much connection. A rather extreme example is how in Fable 2 the world can become a complete dump or rather nice depending on your actions in the first act. That didn't happen much outside of your party.

Now I'm not expecting the world to revolve around you (because frankly it shouldn't) but it would be nice if they not only told us that we moved up in the world and that people cared about what we did in the previous acts but showed it in the game. You're important, sure, but the game almost completely lived in the moment. They completely wasted opportunity that huge time leaps presented. The game felt more rushed with the lack of timeline coherence than the reuse of art assets (Mass Effect 1 was even more guilty of art reuse but doesn't get nearly the flack).

I can agree with this. I didn't personally mind the time skips/lack of reflection of that time and status in society, but I can't really explain why I didn't mind. I didn't notice/mind for some reason, but I can see how it would be an issue for others. Perhaps this is more of a personal preference/how different personalities react to the story?

I can agree with this. I didn't personally mind the time skips/lack of reflection of that time and status in society, but I can't really explain why I didn't mind. I didn't notice/mind for some reason, but I can see how it would be an issue for others. Perhaps this is more of a personal preference/how different personalities react to the story?

Not opposed to time skips, just didn't really understand why they were there outside of preventing you from saving the day in a week. Essentially, I'm only annoyed that the town didn't change over the time skips other than a few regions being blocked off by doors or crates and not with the game only taking place in one town.

A game like Dragon Age:Origins or Mass Effect 1 were calls back to the golden age of gaming. After being teased with that we get suckerpunched on sequels. I and many other people tend to emotionally invest in the storylines of these interactive stories we are given, and thus, when they really jump the shark, it hurts. It hurts more than it does when the story isn't interactive; See how Serenity made some people unhappy with certain characters dying and how; the furor there died rather quickly. In ME3, the furor is still there, primarily because those of us who are angry are the group of people that see every option given as a false choice the character we play would never choose. But hey, it's just a game, right? I suppose. But it is just a game I happened to emotionally invest in. And thus, as I am unhappy with the turns of events we've been given, I refuse their full price games and I badmouth them at every opportunity, thus voting with my words and my wallet.

Here is where I think that gaming culture goes terribly awry (and takes nerd culture in general as its bedmate): stop caring so much.

I know it's not like you have a switch you can just turn on or off in your brain, but it's so much better to just not care that much. You know what I did when I saw the original ending to Mass Effect 3? I shrugged, said "well, that was rather unexciting!" to my wife and went to the gym. That was it.

I've been told that I don't get it. I don't get invested enough. You know why? Because I don't see any reason to get invested. I'd rather invest myself in my family, in my friends, in my other hobbies. I don't want to spend so much time caring about whether or not mass relays blow up a certain way. Who cares? It's like getting upset about midichlorians and writing a fanfiction to "fix" it. My little nephews LOVE the new Star Wars. I don't. But the fact that they love it means that I shrug my shoulders and say, "Hey, they enjoy it, so that's enough for me."

It's one thing to vote with your dollars. That's good. But getting so invested in what is literally an interactive toy that you feel the need to badmouth the company is just way too much. Let it go. It reminds me of fans of a band who don't like a band once they "sell out." Don't be a bitter hipster. Nobody likes a bitter hipster.

It's nice that you aren't invested in the story the way many other people get invested in the story. I buy games for that reason though. So when a company fails spectacularly after initial successes garnering my initial investment, I will take the time and recoup my investment by badmouthing them.

NWN a classic? That is the only Bioware RPG I've never been able to bring myself to finish because the campaign is painfully boring. I've heard the expansions are better and that people tend to remember those being fun, but I couldn't make it that far. And I'm a sucker for RPGs with a lot of patience.

I loved DAO, and I really enjoyed DA2. DA2 was a potentially great game that appeared to have been budgeted to low, with too aggressive a release date.

When try to look at it as objectively as I can, I loved DAO so much because of the dialog. I'd never played a game with the kind of depth of dialog and character interaction that existed in DAO (to that point, I hadn't yet picked up ME). DA2 did *that* part of it about on par with DAO -- a little better writing, and having my PC not be a silent blankface was much nicer, but there was less depth in the conversations. To me it was a wash, though there's a huge halo that DAO has in this regard because it was the first of that type for me.

DA2 took place in one city, which I have no problem with. It needlessly reused *identical* locations, which I do have a problem with. It was only a slight detraction from the game, though.

The time shifts weren't a problem for me, but there was a lot of untapped potential there.

Overall, DAO and DA2 were different games. One expansive and exploratory, the other developed in one place over time.

A few friends of mine extolled BG and BG2 as the greatest RPGs of all time. So I grabbed BG from GOG and started playing. It's horrific. The writing is terrible and the gameplay itself makes me want to stab my eyes out. I understand that it was fairly standard fare at the time -- I liked NWN and NWN2, and still play them both occassionally (and I still play Fallout, Final Fantasy, and others), but I cannot stomach BG. It's awful.

Also, about the "dating game" aspect of DA: god I love it. Not so much the dating part (though that's fun), but the actual interaction with the other main characters of the game, and how your decisions really do affect how they act. I'll take *that* kind of interactive game over any level of "affect the world with my decisions" every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

I get the feeling that this announcement is to attempt to steal some of the thunder of project eternity (which is looking like it might be the biggest kickstarter game yet). If Obsidian delivers, PE will remind people of what great RPG's are, bring back some aspects which i think bioware have forgotten, although, when i look back, i don't think bioware, whilst i love baldurs gate, ever knew when comparing to the writing by some of the people at obsidian have done in the past.

I just gotta figure out how much i'm prepared to spend on the kickstarter, first world problem ftl. I'm a sucker for feelies.

I loved DA:O, but have yet to pick up DA2, mainly because EA removed it from Steam and the lack of encouragement from my DA:O loving friends who picked up DA2.

One day, maybe. Or maybe it's just worth skipping. Depends on the whole choice thing I guess.

My advice, for what it's worth: If you can find DA2 for a price that is impulse buy for you (mine is in the $20-$30 range), it's well worth the cash. It's not DAO, and it's not trying to be. There are some warts in it, but it's a fun game with a good story and fun character interactions.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.